One of Phillip’s teachers discloses that the Idol hopeful will be missing graduation on Friday to film the competition show. Albany Tech professor Robert Permenter tells Fox 31 singing is Phillip’s main love, but his dad is making him get a degree so he has something to fall back on. Robert says Phillip told him: “I love to play music and play guitar but my dad told me that I needed to get a backup plan.”

Phillip, who maintains a 3.2 grade point average in his industrial systems technologies studies, would often sing in the classroom, says Albany Tech Student Bo Moore. “Several nights in class he would bring his guitar and play in class for us,” Bo reports. We bet the ladies loved that!